Industry 4.0: Building Digital Enterprise with AR/VR

Business’s journey to balance profit and purpose is accelerating. A sharper focus on strategy and broader adoption of transformational technologies that benefit both business and society will help organizations get there faster. "It’s about creating a connection and end-to-end experience between the customer and the product; an experience from design to manufacture to delivery," Information Age says. 

Manufacturing has undergone several eras of change from the first industrial revolution (use of steam power and mechanical production), to the second (use of electricity and mass production) and a third era defined by increased automation of manufacturing processes due to the use of information technology (IT). A fourth era of change – Industry 4.0 – is driven by trends on connectivity, service orientation, advanced materials and processing technology, and collaborative advanced manufacturing networks, controlled by computers combining them into a physical – digital environment. 

Here’s what’s driving the change:

• Annual digital revenue increases of 2.9% on average – and a significant minority that expect total increases of more than 50% over five years. That adds up to US$493 bn in increased annual revenues for the next five years across the industrial sectors we surveyed.
• Cost reductions of 3.6% on average. Digital technologies enable shorter operational lead times, higher asset utilisation and maximum product quality; all told, our survey respondents expect to save US $421 bn in costs each year for the next five years. [PwC Industry 4.0 report]

In working to keep up with the pace of technological change, business leaders are also beginning to appreciate the need to nurture a culture of lifelong learning, equipping their workforces with the skills necessary to succeed in the future. 

Industry 4.0 creates new design principles along which the industry can organize itself, these include: increased interoperability between manufacturing networks through increased connectivity, virtualization of manufacturing processes by linking sensor data (from monitoring physical processes) with virtual plant and simulation models, decentralized decision making, real-time capability to collect and analyze data and provide insights, flexible adaptation to changes by reconfiguring individual modules and an increased services orientation. 

Consequently, Industry 4.0 will create opportunities for new business models, solution offerings, and new products. These challenges will come in many forms, likely linked to the incorporation of new IT capabilities, the impact of exponentially increasing amounts of data from sensors and connected devices in the operating environment, suppliers, and from the distribution network as we see the emergence of self-regulating and adapting supply systems. At the same time, risks will emerge related to data security associated with increased connectivity.

How can organizations deploy augmented reality (AR) at scale, solve meaningful business problems with the technology and embrace industry 4.0, as a result?

AR is no longer a futuristic technology, but one that is currently being used to address the most challenging of problems across different industries. For example, Augmented Reality transforming marketing and advertising campaigns. AR gives brands a tool in the belt when it comes to driving sales and enhancing brand value through mobile devices. The global AR market is forecast to reach a value of $70.01 billion by 2023.

Investment in AR has steadily increased in the past few years, and more recently, the technology has generated renewed interest from big brands. 

Howden is an engineering company that provides high-quality air and gas handling products and services to the power, oil & gas, mining and petrochemical industries. It emerged in the peak of the first industrial revolution but is now committed to embracing the fourth industrial revolution, or industry 4.0. It has done this, in one way, by looking to AR.

Howden has been using AR in factories — smart construction, engineer training, product design process etcetera — to foster “impactful transformation in the design process and productivity,” according to Wilson.

It’s about creating a connection and end-to-end experience between the customer and the product; an experience from design to manufacture to delivery.

At the end of this transformation process, successful industrial companies will become true digital enterprises, with physical products at the core, augmented by digital interfaces and data-based, innovative services. These digital enterprises will work together with customers and suppliers in industrial digital ecosystems.